GURPS Terradyne

GURPS Terradyne is an original worldbook for GURPS. It is a future history suitable for a Hard Science Fiction campaign, in the tradition of stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Lester del Ray and Ben Bova or the manga/anime Planetes.

GURPS Terradyne

GURPS Terradyne cover
Designers	Russell Brown, Mark Waltz
Publishers	Steve Jackson Games
Publication	1991
Genres	Hard Science Fiction
Systems	GURPS

Contents

Technology has moved man out into space but not out of the solar system yet. Mars is being terraformed but isn't fully habitable yet. Terradyne, a space-based corporate state, dominates but does not have exclusive control of space-based industries.

Publication history

GURPS Terradyne was designed by Russell Brown and Mark Waltz, and edited by Creede Lambard, and published by Steve Jackson Games as a 128-page softcover book. Illustrations are by Ruth Thompson, Michael Barrett, Angela Bostick, Steve Crompton, C. Bradford Gorby, Denis Loubet, Rick Lowry, Michael Surbrook, and John Waltrip, with a cover by Alan Gutierrez.

It was superseded by the Transhuman Space series which covers the same niche. Some material on Mars was incorporated into Transhuman Space: In The Well.

Reception

Rick Swan reviewed GURPS Terradyne for Dragon magazine #190 (February 1993). In his evaluation, Swan comments: "By emphasizing technology over space opera, Terradyne's sober tone compares favorably to GDW's MegaTraveller game and other hard science-fiction RPGs. Though the dystopian outlook may strike some as overly familiar - how many times have we been warned about grasping corporations? - the thoughtful presentation results in a compelling study of greed gone amuck. And it's user-friendly to boot; except for a few pages devoted to character design, there aren't many new rules to navigate."